BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Continued from: Enhanced Husband Torture Techniques…

Part 2 of 2…

Return with us now to the thrilling days of a Christmas past – When last we left our intrepid blogger, he had asked his wife – the evilest of all evil redheads, Queen Eebil Kat – what manner of offering she demanded be left beneath the sacred scratching post tree on Eebil Katsmas Eve. Her  demand was, of course, for nothing less than “Cool Socks”. Unbeknown to our lovable curmudgeon, Queen Eebil Kat was hatching a sinister plan which would place him in serious peril – a peril she would use for her personal amusement while she laughed and filed her nails…

Okay… Everyone all caught up? Good. Let’s get on with this, because it’s painful for me to even think about.

So, I was feeling pretty good with this. “Cool Socks”. Definitely couldn’t be that hard. I’d been in the sock room before, so I knew what generally constituted cool in her eyes. I also knew her shoe size, so if the socks were for some reason classified by actual sizes, I could cross reference it somewhere.

I was all good. I’d already ordered up another gift she had made noises about throughout the year, so the socks were going to be the perfect distraction. Truth is, I was more than good. I was flat out golden.

Then, as they say, the hangin’ day came round… (Who is they? Mason Proffit, of course…)

At any rate, I cleared a bit of my schedule one day so that I could run to the store. Now, I didn’t imagine it would take long for me to obtain the sacred socks, but just to be on the safe side, since it WAS the Christmas (aka Katsmas) season after all, I scheduled myself the whole late morning and early afternoon to accomplish said task.

Now, something you need to understand about me is this: I absolutely hate shopping. Despise it. Seriously. I am one of those folks who knows exactly what he is after, goes to get it at the least busy time of day he can find, then zips in and right back out of the store, avoiding all unnecessary contact with insane shoppers that he can. The only – and I mean ONLY time I enjoy shopping is when I take E K to a nice store and do the whole “Pretty Woman” thing with her.

1. Because she is, in point of fact, pretty. EXTREMELY pretty. (Wayyyyyy prettier than Julia Roberts if you ask me.)
2. Because I get to sit in one place and watch. Not much crowd dodging involved. Life is good. E K gets new pretty clothes, I get to relax and watch a hottie trying on said clothes. The only thing that would make it better is a cooler full of beer.

Unfortunately this particular spree did not fall into the “E K / Pretty Woman” category. It did, however, fall into the “must obtain offering for the Eebil Queen” category. And, I’m all about making sure The Evil One is placated, lest I end up whimpering in the back of a closet with a variety of size 7 woman’s shoe prints all up and down my torso.

So, with my schedule cleared, off to the mall I went.

Not being a regular shopper for women’s wear, I wandered aimlessly through a couple of the stores at Northwest Plaza. Up the escalator I went. Down the escalator I went. Wander, wander, wander… Dodge, dodge, dodge… Up, down… Down, up… Wander some more.

Then I frowned really hard. Why? Because I found no cool socks. In fact, the only socks I managed to find were mens tube socks, six in a bag, your choice, black or white.

Definitely not cool.

So, with my shoulders starting to slump, I started again through the mall and decided to bite the bullet. I would go into one of the high dollar department stores. I don’t want to name it here, but let’s just say the first half of the name is a kind of pickle and the second half rhymes with “cards”.

We had played pretty woman here before, so surely they, of all stores, would have “cool socks” befitting of Queen Eebil Kat.

I did the up, down, wander around thing a bit more. Then, like the point of a shovel striking a buried chest, I rounded a corner and found, yes, you guessed it, socks. But, that wasn’t all. As I made a beeline toward this treasure trove of offerings for my Evil Queen, I met what you might call resistance. You see, just as pirates buried dead dudes with their treasure chests, apparently big, fancy stores bury dead, angry salesladies with their socks. Before I had made it two steps into the department, the departed souls of one of them popped right up in my face. With the path to my prize blocked, I immediately took evasive action and tried to sidestep her. Well, apparently the angry spirits of dead old salesladies are pretty nimble, because I didn’t make it an inch before she was right there barring my way. I tried feinting to one side and then shifting to the other, but it was like she could read my mind. I simply wasn’t getting in.

I stopped and stood there for a moment, while the sales zombie looked me over, then she opened her mouth. I started to back up, fearing that she was going to try to eat my brain, but instead she simply barked with unmistakable disdain, “Can I help you?!”

You could just tell by the way she said it that she had to have been a redhead before all the color drained out of her.

“Socks,” I said. “I need to by some socks.”

“Mens apparel is downstairs,” she growled.

“They aren’t for me,” I replied.

She eyed me with suspicion then demanded, “Who are they for?”

“My wife.”

“Your wife?” She didn’t sound as though she believed me.

I couldn’t help myself. I was starting to get a bit impatient so I blurted, “Did I stutter?”

“Don’t be a smartass or I’ll eat your face!” she hissed in return.

“Yes ma’am.”

Continuing with her interrogation she spat, “Why are you buying socks for your wife?”

“A Katsma… I mean Christmas present.”

“Present? Socks?” There was absolutely no mistaking the fact that she didn’t believe me at all this time.

“Yeah, she said she wanted some cool socks.”

“Cool socks? What do you mean, cool socks?”

“You know. Socks with interesting patterns. Argyle. That sort of thing.”

“Yeah, right,” she mumbled, standing there working her jaw and smacking her lips. I imagine she was trying to get an errant bit of brains from the last poor schmuck dislodged from her false teeth. She looked me over in silence twice more, then stepped aside. “These are all the socks we have.”

“Thank you,” I said, slipping past her to inspect the rows of polka dotted, striped, argyled, fuzzy, and otherwise “cool” feminine foot coverings.

Now, not having an absolute inventory of the sock room floating around in my head, it took me a bit to make a decision on a few pairs of the sacred socks. Obviously I wanted my offering to the Evil Queen to be perfect, especially with it being Katsmas and all. My task, however, was not made any easier by the fact that the Zombie Sales Lady Jackal didn’t stray from my side. She just kept following me up and down the aisles, never less than a half dozen inches away as she shuffled along, grunting and wheezing. I have to admit, not only was it psychologically disconcerting, but I almost succumbed to the Ben Gay and Polygrip fumes that were wafting around me in thick clouds.

Finally, I chose some especially cool socks for my dear and lovely. Before I could even start toward the register, Zombie lady snatched them out of my hands and demanded, “Cash or charge?”

“Visa…” I mumbled, extracting the plastic money from my wallet.

“You want these gift wrapped?” she spat, wobbling off to the register stand.

“No. I can handle that,” I replied.

“Uh-huh,” she grunted. “I thought so, you pervert.”

By the time I arrived at my truck, mall security, the local police, and a SWAT team had surrounded it. I was taken into to custody and spent several grueling hours trying to answer questions about sock fetishism.

But, that wasn’t the scary part. When they finally turned on the overhead lights in the interview room, who do you think I saw? Yeah… E K sitting in the corner, giggling to herself in a very satisfied way, all the while painting her nails.

I’m no longer allowed within 100 feet of the women’s sock aisle in any department store in the United States. I can hang out in the lingerie all I want, but if I go near the socks I end up getting tackled by security. These days I have to shop for my offerings to Queen Eebil Kat online. Even so, my guess is all those sites are tracking my IP address just to be sure I don’t do anything perverted.

More to come…

Murv

THE PUF REPORT: Part 3 of 5

As a rule, PUF always has a mascot.

Now, the thing about the mascot is that it changes every year. I’m not entirely sure what the first few mascots happened to be, because while I have been headlining the fest for something like 8 years, I came into the mix somewhere around the time of PUF #3.

Back in ’01, when #3 happened, the “mascots” were sheep. Not real sheep, mind you. Nobody wanted to clean up the sheep poo.  So, real grass eating wool makers were replaced by the next best thing – life-sized cardboard cutouts made in their likeness. But then, they eventually progressed not only into cutouts, but plush stuffed animals and plastic toys as well. Which is one of the things that drove the mascot diversity PUF is known for today. Even so, I believe sheep were still the mascot in ’02, as to this very day I have a nubbly little plastic novelty toy sheeplike thing that was somewhat of a party favor handed out at the fest.

The picture above is obviously not a sheep. It was taken in ’08, when aliens invaded PUF. Although, now that I think about it, sheep and little green men might have gotten along just fine. Well, maybe not gotten along per se, but I’m betting the alien dudes would have had some fun with the sheep. What the sheep would have thought of that is anyone’s guess. I suppose it would largely depend upon the individual sheep and… well… things we simply won’t go into here.

Uhh… Ahem… So, moving right along…

Of course, the point here is basically to illustrate that the mascots have become an important – and expected – fixture at the Festival. To that end, I’d like to offer the following quote directly from the Festival Organizer herself,  Tish Owen. In her book, Chasing The Rainbow: Facilitating A Pagan Festival Without Losing Your Mind, she states:

WHY ARE THERE ANIMALS AT PUF? – We really have no good answers to that question, except that it amuses us. We did not start out with an animal mascot or even a name. But over the years, we have had too many bagels donated, cooked pigs, a sheep incident, the fire, the accident, the flood, and then we just started adding the animals for fun. Then at some point, someone started killing the mascots and it has devolved. We have had: bagels, sheep, pigs, penguins, flamingos, Chihuahuas, and flying pigs!

There have been more, such as the aliens, since the publication of her book. And, as you can see here on the right, she wasn’t kidding about the mascot killings. A poor, inflatable blue-green dude met his demise on the road right outside the VIP cabin one night. The scene was odd since no cars had come by for several hours, yet there it was, flat as the proverbial pancake. It definitely made us wonder if it was perhaps a “staged accident”.

But, at least in this case the particular end met was a bit more swift. Among other victims of the “serial mascot killer” another alien was found in the walk-in freezer in the dining hall. It was frozen solid, and still had a… well… there’s simply no delicate way to say this… It still had an “anal probe” protruding from its rectal orifice, which prompted site investigators to conclude that the green dude had been tortured as well as frozen to death. Of course, this theory led to… Yeah, you guessed it… An Alien Autopsy.

Sometimes there have been notes from the killer. Sometimes not. I think it largely depends upon the particular killing – that being whether it was one of the planned murders, or merely an opportunistic sort of hack and slash.

Still, there are times when the method or arrangement of the corpsified mascot remains is a message unto itself. For instance, during the year of the flying pigs many a winged swine met a horrible and terrible fate. One in particular was the little piggy who had none. In point of fact, the reason he had none is because he was the roast beast. He was even layered between two slices of breand and served up to Tish herself in her lunch one day – ostensibly so she could “taste test” the roast pork that was to be served for dinner that evening. It’s quite possible you heard her laughing when she unwrapped the sandwich, no matter where you happen to reside. We definitely heard her from one end of the campground to the other, and many points beyond.

By now I’m sure you are wondering just exactly what all this has to do with “dingles”… Well, nothing at all really. But, we’ll get to them eventually…

This year, 2009, was a first for PUF mascots. You see, instead of sheep, or frogs, or chee-hoowah-hoowah’s, we had Pirates. That’s right, Pirates. Not Pie Rats. Although, Pie Rats could possibly be fun. But, I digress…

Since the mascot was actual human being type of people it made things a bit more difficult on the “serial mascot killer”. After all, if you “kill” a stuffed, plush penguin, all you do is make a mess. If you actually kill a festival attendee who is dressed as a Pirate, the sheriff shows up and there are hard questions demanding answers. Therefore, miniature rubber duckies with pirate garb molded onto them served as the victims. Them, and Peeps. Yeah, I know, it was sort of like Peep sacrilege, but what can ya’ do?

Anywho, moving right along, this year’s PUF had a fantastic lineup of guest authors. Kristin Madden, Dorothy Morrison, Raven Grimassi & Stephanie Taylor, Moi, and even Christopher Penczak. (Can anyone see where this is going?)

Well, just in case you haven’t caught on just yet, think about the following… Pirates are the mascot, we are a bunch of authors who like hanging out together, because we are authors we make a living with words, and we all  pretty much have severely warped senses of humor… And, we’re punny… Very punny… Ya’ there yet?

Yeah… We dubbed ourselves the Pirates of Penczak…

But, even through the “bad pun groans” wafting from my PC speakers I can still hear you asking, “But, Murv, what the hell does all this have to do with a dingle? And, moreover, what the hell is a dingle anyway?”

Well, to answer the first question, not a damn thing.

To answer the second, you’ll have to ask Raven and Stephanie, because you see, all I know is Raven won’t let Stephanie go into the dingle by herself…

More to come…

Murv

The next installment in THE PUF REPORT: Part 4 of 5 – Food, Glorious Food…